


Ophelia

by Liliales_lb



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 09:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16741699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liliales_lb/pseuds/Liliales_lb
Summary: A summary of the many forms Ophelia has taken over the years, in games from D&D to Pathfinder and many more.





	Ophelia

**Author's Note:**

> In a setting called Chaos Dreams, Ophelia is a princess-turned-soldier, abandoned by her country's god to find her own way through the underworld.

Ophelia Xilos Antemes was, quite literally, born to greatness. From an early age, she knew that she was destined for power - being third in line to the Antemes throne, only behind an elder sister and her mother, she spent her childhood in opulence. Her life was comfort and luxury, which would have been perfect if not for the minor problem that she didn't  _ want _ to be that close to the throne; despite her family ruling over Romagon, the second-largest colony of the militaristic Xilosian Empire, all she wanted to do was join the Legion and fight.

Her parents, of course, discouraged this.

And yet, she used her status - as young as seven - to cajole and convince the guards around her family's estate to teach her how to handle a blade. Sure, their arming daggers were practically zweihander in her young hands, but she began to pick up the art with an alarming rapidity. By the time she was ten, she could best most of the men around the castle, albeit mainly by exploiting their reluctance to strike down a princess and a young girl.

However, this wasn't to last. King Altarus Xilos Antemes was indulgent, perhaps, but his wife, Queen Aelia, was much more protective of her two daughters. While Ophelia's sister Fausta was content to be waited upon, to learn needlepoint and how to ride sidesaddle, Ophelia herself watched the Legion drill in the courtyard outside of the keep, practicing the same moves and stances with rough-hewn sticks and fireplace pokers.

By the time she was fourteen, Queen Aelia had had quite enough of her insolence, and sent away Ophelia to fight with the Legion. If her daughter wanted  _ so badly _ to be a legionnaire, then she could trek through the mud, carry her pack, and fight to defend the Romagoni lands from the Jotun in the north. Soon enough, she would realize what she was giving up, and come back... or at least, so Aelia thought.

Ophelia  _ thrived _ in the Legion. She had a meteoric rise through the Legion, oftentimes promoted the moment she had served the requisite time. She was chosen upon enlistment to be Optio - the second-in-command - of her century, purely based on the status of her birth, but quickly proved that despite being young, she was plenty strong. Hadeus himself, God of the Xilosian Empire, smiled upon her, blessing her with war, blood, and song. To watch her fight was akin to watching a dancer; every motion graceful, every move balanced.

 

And so she served for six years, before tragedy struck.

Her Legion stuck out into the mountains north of Romagon, but were caught in a terrible ambush. Avalanches rained down from either side of them, and while they were trapped in the valley between, the Jotun rushed them; they easily routed her Legion. By the time they escaped, barely two hundred of the original five thousand soldiers remained.

Disgraced and dishonored, Ophelia somehow remained in command of a century - one of the  _ two _ formed out of the remains of the Legion - while replacements were trained. However, this was not good luck. Those two lone centuries were sent on a suicide mission - to combat an incursion from the Far Realms, a shapeless horror-beast of pure chaos.

Such was Xilosian devotion to the Legion, and such was the strength of their religion. They could not fall, not unless Hadeus willed it, and as such, they struck out. Two hundred of the Legion's best-trained soldiers, led by Ophelia and her primipilus Otho, against a single Far Beast.

Needless to say, they died.

Horrifically.

 

And upon death, Ophelia was not nearly greeted by the sight she believed she deserved. Hadeus brought the most skilled, the most devoted, the most dedicated followers of his to Hadea, his personal afterlife. Being a princess of the Empire, a centurion of his Legion, and a devout follower, Ophelia had believed it a given that she would be greeted by marble and gold after her death.

Instead, she found herself alone and afraid, her Legion scattered to the mists of the Shadow Plane. She heard the terrible skittering of the Ether Reapers, gigantic mechanical spider-constructs that caught wandering souls to spin them into soul-silk. She heard the screams of her legionnaires, honorable fighters all, as they were hunted down. Worst of all, she heard the patient, quiet sound of the infinite darkness around her.

So she ran.

She ran, and ran, until she felt like her lungs would burst, her legs would collapse from under her, and yet she didn't stop. Couldn't stop, perhaps. She had no need to breathe as a spirit, at least, and didn't seem to grow tired, but the horrific noises from behind her drove her to madness. She cried as she ran - for what she lost, for what she left behind, for what she would never see again.

And after an interminable length, she saw a city appear on the horizon. The Iron City of Dis. The realm of the God of Death and Law, the Broker of Contracts, the Lord of Vaults, Armenon the Hungering. Ophelia could still hear the Reapers behind her, the screams petering out as they echoed across the twisted, darkened landscape, and so she pounded upon the gate. There was only a single gate; cast out of black iron, and so tall that it seemed to disappear into the sky above her, and yet she arrived directly to it. (Everyone did, in fact; it was one of the properties of Dis, a law imposed upon the mutable form of the Plane of Shadow.)

 

As her fist hammered on the cold, bleak iron, she felt a voice in her mind; Armenon's presence, reaching out from inside the city, offering her a choice. He could give her another chance at life, but she would have to do him a favor. And sign a contract, of course; a god of law wouldn't leave that sort of thing to chance.

She took the deal.

She would get another chance at life, in return for two things: first, she would worship Armenon above all others, and second, she would hunt down the mysterious airship pirate Fex, convert or kill his crew, slay him, and crash his ship into the ground. If she failed either of those tasks, Armenon would take her soul back, imprisoned within Dis as a slave to those who had completed their so-called Deadlines for the rest of eternity.

Oh, and she only had one year to do it.

 

She woke up, laying in a ditch. While Armenon had promised her another chance at life, he hadn't promised her  _ her own _ body to do it with; not that there was much left of that, after the reality-warping Far Beast had corrupted the very land, trees dripping like putty and the sky raining ducks.

With nothing to lose, she pulled on her helmet, hid her now-skeletal visage from view, and walked to the nearest town. She pretended to be a visiting noble, a dilettante wandering the Romagoni mountains on her own, and scraped together what funds she could in order to buy passage on the next airship out of there.

She couldn't bear to be recognized by her family, and though the odds were low, she  _ really  _ didn't want to run into anyone who could possibly recognize her. Plus, in the theocratic Xilosian Empire, worshipping anyone but Hadeus was a heresy punishable by death, and with her soul bound to worship Armenon... well, it was a bit of a catch-22.

 

The airship took her south, from Romagon to Arcadia, the home of the Xilosian Empire, and from there on to the Free Wastes, across the eastern sea. There, she used what coin she had to hire a handful of workers, and struck out for Dania, a burgeoning township on the unincorporated edge of the Wastes.

The ship exploded, half a day from Dania, crashing into the Wastes. Sabotage. Green magefire blossomed from the bowels of the ship, sending it crashing to the ground below. Somehow, Ophelia's cohort of workers all survived, along with the majority of her newfound friends: Donovan Strange, a psion from the zombie-riddled Nied, and Aurus Xilos Corvus, another Xilosian noble, from the capital of Arcadia. Ophelia, travelling under a false name (Ophelia Corvus Cethegus), hadn't revealed her status - either as a noble, a heretic, or an undead - to the pair.

Despite the crash, Ophelia quickly rallied the survivors, and together with a message from the grievously wounded Marshall of the Wastes that had been on board, they hiked the rest of the way to Dania. Along the way, they ran into brutish gnolls - easily dispatched - but made it to the town by nightfall.

While in Dania, Ophelia used her memories of classes as a young princess in order to expand her small team of laborers to a true economic force; something Dania desperately needed, as the town was struggling both with a lack of labor, and a mysterious plague. Ophelia also began her hunt for Fex, asking around at the bounty office and discovering that he was a notorious pirate, known for honoring the pirate's code but showing no mercy.

 

Conscripted by the mayor, Ophelia, Aurus, and Donovan formed the Dania Task Force. They tracked the plague to the water plant miles out of town, to find a were-rat by the name of Dietrich and his swarm of 'friends'; though wounded, they convinced Dietrich to stand down, and Ophelia brought him back to town. The were-rat would no longer be a problem (and, in fact, was happy to work for Ophelia as a sort of exterminator), but that wasn't the source of the plague.

Uncertain, the task force journeyed to Aristes, a nearby Imperial settlement, to seek aid from the priests there in purifying the blood of the town, somewhat literally. The price of such a service was to recover an ancient sword held by a Hadean warrior from a past age from a forgotten tomb; succeeding handily, the priests began a ritual to purify Dania. However, the ritual failed; whatever caused the plague was too strong for them to dispel.

Complications arose when Alexi Geistheim, an inquisitor of sorts from Nied, rolled in to town. As it turned out, he was hunting an alchemist on the run from the state for illegal magecraft and suborning the resources of the Niedschien State; Donovan's panic (also being on the run from Nied) was apparent. However, Ophelia rallied the citizens of Dania and effectively drove him from town, proclaiming that it wasn't  _ his _ city to question.

 

Stumped, the Task Force decided that their only chance was to hunt down an artifact said to be able to cure any illness; The Godsblood, crystallized blood of Hadeus from when the Traitor Queen mortally wounded him in the Age of Gods. Having heard rumors of such a thing in the great steam-powered city of Irongate, the trio set out across the desert.

Along the way, they encountered bandits - handily dispatched - before arriving at a great train station to carry them through the Wastes. On the train, however, they ran into the mysterious Mister Dee, who claimed to be their 'benefactor'. Having pulled them into a dream-based demiplane for the conversation, he described the Task Force as pieces on a chessboard, naming other figures from their history as opposing pieces, and himself as not the king, but the player. He then allowed them to ask a question each, which Ophelia used to discover that Fex based his operations out of the pirate 'capital' of Char-Merag. After answering their queries, he left them in the demiplane, where food appeared based on their desires. Ophelia, being undead, hadn't had food from her home in months by this point, and dug in.

However, a stray through crossed her mind - Mister Dee had mentioned that  _ anything _ they wanted would appear to eat, and she was always one for pushing limits. Picking up her glass, she imagined what it would be like to have the blood of a god in her chalice - after all, that was why they were on the way to Irongate, wasn't it?

Her cup filled with a shimmering, iridescent substance, and she took a careful sip. The train car vanished, and her eyes filled with the unending chaos from before creation; with a monumental effort of will, she barely avoided being driven insane by the sight. Her vision cleared, not to show the train car, but instead to show a secluded glade, a stone altar, and a beautiful woman resting atop it - dead. Armenon's voice echoed from behind her, warning her to never forget this sight. It was the site of the first murder; the hidden location of Mystra's body after the Traitor Queen had killed her before wounding Hadeus. And, if Hadeus ever had his way, she would never see it again. Suddenly, she felt a heavy weight on her, as if a second pair of eyes was burning its gaze into her back.

Gasping for breath for the first time since her unlife began, Ophelia tore her sight away from the body and returned to the train car, vowing not to tell anyone of what she had seen.

 

The remainder of the journey to Irongate was, in a word, uneventful, at least by comparison.

 

Upon arrival, a thief managed to steal Donovan's purse, and the trio chased him through the city to discover that he was trying to make up the ransom for a water controller that a rival gang had taken, dooming his entire block to a slow death. Deciding that the street smarts of a gang could be useful in locating the Godsblood, they decided to hunt down the pyromancer behind the kidnapping, and left "Tom" to his devices.

By way of an ambush in the gang's warehouse, the trio managed to kill the pyromancer - actually a Wilder psionicist - but the combat attracted enough attention that the authorities had begun to close in on them, and were already surrounding the bridges that would allow them escape from the high-rise. Donovan and Aurus jumped off, using Donovan's  _ slow fall _ to prevent their untimely demise, but in order to prove his death, Ophelia needed to escape with the wilder's body. She judged the distance, hefted him in front of her like a shield, and jumped off as well, plummeting past her magic-wreathed friends.

Unbeknownst to her two friends, after the events in the tomb of Aristes, she had picked up a magical item in the market: Boots of Catfall, which let her land from great heights with... well,  _ less _ pain. She landed atop the body of the wilder, stumbled a bit, and then thanked Armenon that the man had been wearing what amounted to a modern-day HAZMAT suit, because otherwise it would have been  _ exceedingly  _ messy.

They brought the wilder's necklace back to Tom, and the thief lead them to a run-down antiquities shop, in the bowels of Irongate, practically on ground level. Aurus engaged the proprietor in conversation, while Ophelia and Donovan checked through the crowded shelves before eventually finding it - a cracked gemstone the size of two fists put together. Ophelia began to plan how to get it away, and then heard Donovan's voice in her head:  _ Just leave. _

When she looked back to her left, her friend was gone, so she called out to Aurus that Tom must have misled them. Angered, Aurus stormed out, and Ophelia rushed to follow him. Donovan revealed his status as a changeling, having shifted to match the form of his familiar to leave - with the Godsblood in his hand, hidden by the natural transfiguration of his heritage.

 

Triumphant, the trio returned to Dania, only to learn that the relic was cracked, and would need three things to function: the blood of a witch, the blood of a king, and the blood of a dragon. The mayor's daughter, Dania - after whom the town was named - was a witch, and willing to give up her blood. Ophelia revealed herself as a former Crown Princess of the empire, direct daughter of the King of Romagon, whose blood flowed in her veins, and offered up hers. Which left only the blood of a dragon.

However, Ophelia wouldn't know the location of a dragon. Days after, while they were still gathering information, the Xilosian Inquisition appeared in town. Aurus couldn't let his loyalty to the Empire fall, even for a friend, and had reported her rebirth and heresy to them with magic; having found a heretical crown princess, the Inquisition lead a crusade in all but name to retrieve her.

 

She was captured easily, and thrown onto an airship, destined for the courts of the Arcadian capital to be summarily tried and executed for heresy of the highest order.

While above the Eastern Sea, the airship was attacked by pirates. Apparently - at least according to a vision she had - the ship was sent by Mister Dee to free her. There being no other logical explanation - why attack an armed Inquisitorial ship, without even the promise of a treasure galleon's cargo for reward - she took it as true, and escaped onto the ship along with the other prisoner.

Once onboard, she convinced the pirates to make a detour towards Char-Merag, where she could leave them two of them be, to return to whatever ways they desired. Accepting the bargain, the airship turned course, leaving the Inquisitorial ship to crash into the waves below.

 

Along the way, they had an encounter with copper drakes and kobolds, stealing the elemental 'heart' of the airship, and Ophelia and her newfound friend raided their cave. Surrounded by thunderstorms and barely escaping with their lives, they returned the heart to the airship and promptly high-tailed it away from the mountain.

 

They arrived in Char-Merag, but with a bit of a hitch - apparently, news of the attack on the Inquisitorial ship had reached the ears of the Pirate King, and he had the ship imprisoned for almost beginning a war. Not being a true part of the crew, Ophelia wasn't privy to the negotiations, but somehow the crew was released to wander the town - just not to leave.

In town, Ophelia commissioned a new shield to match her armor, and began to search for Fex's location. She learned that he returned each fortnight to offload cargo, take on new crew, and plan his next raids; and that he was due in the next morning. Deciding to wait for a day, she told her crew about this, and about his 'crimes' - entirely fabricated, to justify her hunt to them - to the King.

Somehow, she got away with it, and two weeks later, she stood on the precipice, her ship waiting to chase his down when it left the great cliffs of Char-Merag. Just as the moon began to rise, she spotted his great ship, and hers lurched into motion. She told them to come up above Fex's ship, to remain above their ship, and then as they drew close... she jumped.

She landed, perfectly, in the center of the deck, barely even scratched by the thousand-foot-fall between the two ships thanks to her Boots of Catfall. She called out for Fex, challenging him under the Code to honorable duel for grievances levelled... and he appeared. He knew who she was working for, he said, and had dealt with many young Deadliners from Armenon before. He offered her a deal - the Hag Queens had freed his soul for a promise to them, and he could do the same; if nothing else, her tenacity in hunting him deserved a reward.

Ophelia wasn't having it. She had had enough of promises, of loyalty, of serving others. She was going to kill him, she said, finish her deadline, and then work only for herself.

And so, their duel began in earnest. Fex couldn't seem to land a single strike - his sword strokes were parried by Ophelia's armored gauntlets, his feints ignored. The few times he even drew a pistol from the brace around his chest, she deflected it off the shining new buckler she had commissioned in Char-Merag. Desperate, he even called upon the Hag Queen's magic, channeling it into a dark ray of - well, Ophelia wasn't quite sure - but that, too, deflected off of the enchanted surface of her buckler.

Fex backed up to the edge of the boat, fearing her inevitable advance, and just when it seemed he would jump from the boat rather than face her, Ophelia lunged forwards. She caught him by the collar and threw him to the center of the boat, before the duel turned into a beating.

Minutes later, she stood over his broken body, and felt the approval of her dark god. She had fulfilled her Deadline. Or maybe that warmth was radiating off of her friend, descended down a rope to stand on the deck next to her, facing off against the angered crew, now without a captain.

Just before she thought violence would break out, divine flame burned a circle into the deck. Her friend bared his wings, and his voice echoed - he was no mortal, he said, but a Seraph, constructed by Hadeus to find her and return her to His light. She was not betrayed, those months ago, in combat against the Far Beast; the thing's chaotic power had confused even Hadeus' sight. She was not betrayed, merely  _ lost _ . And now, she was  _ found _ , and could return to her family. Allowances could be made - and who would argue with the messenger of their very God, if He said her worship was allowed to be split?

Scared, Ophelia reached out, and took that hand.

She may have bested a pirate captain in single combat. She may have fought down a nest of drakes and kobolds. She may have retrieved an aeons-old sword, stared down a Niedschien tank with nothing but her evening dress, and forged her own way in the Wastes...

But at heart, Ophelia was still a little girl who missed her home.

  
  



End file.
